World Leisure Journal Aesthetics of leisure ...

This article was downloaded by: [Bournemouth University] On: 11 October 2013, At: 08:49 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

World Leisure Journal Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwle20

Aesthetics of leisure—disciplining desire a

David McGillivray BA (Hons) Leisure Management & Matt Frew BA (Hons)

b

a

Division of Media , Language and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonian University , Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom b

Recreation Management, Division of Media , Language and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonian University , Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom Published online: 11 Mar 2011.

To cite this article: David McGillivray BA (Hons) Leisure Management & Matt Frew BA (Hons) (2002) Aesthetics of leisure—disciplining desire, World Leisure Journal, 44:1, 39-47, DOI: 10.1080/04419057.2002.9674259 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/04419057.2002.9674259

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 08:49 11 October 2013

WORLD LEISURE No. 112002

O Co~vriahtbv the authors

Aesthetics of leisure - disciplining desire DAVID MCGILLIVRAY, MA- FREW Glasgow Caledonian University

Abstract This paper critically reflects upon the nature and significance of aesthetics and its multiple representations within leisure. The paper focuses upon one specific leisure context, the health club environment, and presents a critique of aesthetics within the discursive context of modernity and postmodernity. The paper outlines the emerging territory of aesthetics (Nickson et al, 2000; Van Maanen, 1990; Witz et al, 1998; Du Gay, 1996) and challenges its notion as a passive entity, instead suggesting that aesthetics resides within a 'society of signs' (Rojek 1995) or 'regime of signs' (Deleuze and Guattari 1984) with inscriptive and territorializing tendencies. The contention here is that the health club environment services and supports such a society in i t s construction, reaffirmation, maintenance and reactivation of desire. Desire (Nietzsche, 1967; Foucault 1984; Deleuze and Guattari 1984; Megill 1987) is intrinsically linked to the aestheticisation process as exemplified in the search for the body image of the 'other' (Fox 1993; Foucault 1984). However, this paper argues that this quest for the 'other' establishes a process of regulation and surveillance of the self, resulting in a continual dissatisfaction of desire alluded to through the metaphor of travel. Moreover, it is suggested that a paradox exists within the health club environment, reflecting both discourses of modernity and postmodernity. Modernity is represented in the rationalised body process and its deferral within a techno-centricldependency culture. The postmodern discourse is represented in a consumer culture of instant gratification, where identity is transmuted through the sign.

Keywords: aesthetics; desire; modernity; postmodernity; dissatisfaction; objectification; consumer culture; health club; techno-dependency

Introduction Philosophically, aesthetics were debated in the Republic with Platos' 'Forms' (Plato, 1974) which advocated that all we have, in the artistic aesthetical sense, is an imitation of an imitation. More important was Kant's

attempt t o logically place aesthetics in his 'Critique of Judgement' (Kant, 1969) (antinomy of taste; analysis of the beautiful and sublime; logic of aesthetic judgement; moral function of aesthetics). For him, aesthetic judgement is to be drawn from nature rather


David McGillivray, Matt Frew

than art and viewed as universal. This debate over aesthetics has continued down through the philosophical ages to be reformulated by those of a postmodern turn. This is often associated with, arguably, the first of the postmodern pioneers, Nietzsche. For him, aesthetics links with nihilism, not in a negative sense but one where, rather than 'shudder' and 'draw back' from the void or the 'reality of crisis' an active aesthetical nihilism is proposed. Here, rather than 'lamenting the absence of the world ...we invent one' and aesthetics provides the means whereby we 'dance upon the void' and 'embark upon a divine - that is, a creative - way of thinking' (Megill, 1987: 34). This postmodern view has received renewed interest with intimations of postmodernity, exemplified by Rojek (1995: 165) who suggests that:

'. ..postmodernity is associated with the aestheticizotion of everyday life. This is a corollary of the argument that the divisions between high and low art, elite and popular cultures have collapsed. It is not so much that life has become more beautiful but rather that, in comparison with modernity, questions of beauty and appearance exercise greater influence in our ordinary decisions about appearance, style and movement... ' Jameson (1991) agrees that, under postmodernity, the sign world infuses ethics, politics and economics, areas previously seen as realms of fact. Everything becomes perceived and explained in terms of culture. In conditions where style is said to have replaced substance as the focus of association, practice and identity, there is a sense in which the quality of appearance comes to preoccupy social consciousness. Hence, as Jameson contends, the pre-eminence of aesthetic questions in discussions of postmodernism (Jencks, 1 984; Foster, 1985; Kroker and Cook, 1986; Featherstone, 1991). In social conditions where 'reality' is assessed in terms of symbol and image, personal or institutional appearance is the most immediate point of social communication. This paper will examine the

ways in which aesthetics are a central element of the leisure industries, particularly the health club industry.

Aesthetics of leisure delivering the desire? As used in Lacanian psychoanalysis, the term desire has a more specific connotation than the English word 'wish'. Whereas Freud believed that unconscious wishes could be fulfilled, even though in a distorted way through dreams or in the symptom, through a chain of displacements and condensations which keeps them repressed, desire is intrinsically unfulfillable because desire is something else which is always missing in us. In other words, it is always represented in the search for the 'other', which will never fulfil our own lack of being. What Lacan (Williams and Bendelow, 1998) suggests is that desire can never be fulfilled, unlike a need or demand, which can be partially satisfied by a particular object. The only object of desire is an originally lost object. This Lacanian view, with its negative conceptualisation of desire as a process of lack and endless deferral into the future reflects the representation of desire within modernity. Here, as evidenced within Western psychoanalysis, desire is always something to be repressed due to its propensity to subvert reason and upset social order. This conceptualisation is countered within postmodern debates over desire. As found in the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1984), the negative lacking representation of desire is rejected. Rather, desire is viewed as an area of individuality that is both positive and creative. Desire does not relate to some ontologically fixed identity but is, instead, an active 'rhizomatic' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988) process void of centre and definitive depiction, always in flow and transformation within the lived experience of social life. It is the product of 'heterogeneous terms', the relations between which gain a 'consistency and autonomy' over time, exemplified in 'sexual attraction' (Goodchild, 1996; 41 ). As


Aesthetics of leisure - disciplining desire

such, the individual is viewed as a 'desiringmachine' (Goodchild, 1996) driven by libidinal energy rather than repressive reason. However, as a fluid social collage, desire must be seen as a deterritorialising concept that challenges the initial territorial relation (i.e. sexual) as it extends to explore the formation, or process of 'becoming', desire within other relations (Goodchild, 1996). Such a set of relations can be found, as this study argues, within the health club industry and the politics of desire therein. Here, notions of the rational, socially productive and disciplined citizen clash with a narcissistic consumer culture that has shifted from 'bodies producing commodities' to 'commodities producing bodies' (Faurschou, 1988) with hedonistic tendencies. The principal argument of this paper is that the desire for a particular body aesthetic in the early twenty-first century is, in some way, constructed by the leisure industries as cultural intermediaries titillating, moulding and shaping the desires of individual consumers. The paradox is, however, that these desires cannot, and are not being fulfilled and therefore remain constantly in the future. Health club consumers are then caught in a cycle, which the authors term a continual dissatisfaction of desire. So, the society of signs in which symbolic consumption takes place constructs desire for the body beautiful. However, the actual process of achieving this objective is dependent upon a discipline which is absent from the postmodern concern with surface appearance, depthlessness and an ontology of the present (Foucault, 1974). As Williams and Bendelow (1998: 75) suggest;

'. ..The mandate for discipline therefore clashes with the mandate for pleasure, and our bodies serve as the 'ultimate metaphor' reflecting the general mood and cultural contradictions of late capitalist society... ' Other commentators also remark on the way in which desire is cultivated is through the symbols of postmodernity. As Rojek (1995:

61) states, the body in consumer culture is a fertile area of study seeing as: '...much of our leisure time is devoted to maintaining our bodies, improving them, displaying them, scenting them and decorating them. Similarly, much of the leisure industry revolves round dressing our bodies, increasing our attraction, preserving our youthfulness and cosmeticising our less appealing physical characteristics.. . ' However, the health club environment addressed in this paper can also be associated with modernity, in that desire is always tomorrow, in the future, and concerned with an investment in the body. Here, the body itself is held as an image of promise that carries privileging associations with beauty, success, assurance and self-contentment. Such a self is one that is perpetually sought yet never caught. Crandall (1999: 1) provides a depiction of the health club as a place where bodies are being made fit to catch up with the images, arguing that: '...it seems that wherever there is an image there is an incomplete body running after it, endeavouring to catch it or interpolate itself into it...step onto the jogging treadmill.. .running on the rubber belt of the treadmill like a rat on a wheel, one runs towards images which one will never get to or achieve... ' McCracken (1988) conceptualises this in the notion of 'displaced meaning', which he relates to the gap between lived reality and idealism. According to McCracken, ideals are retained in order to provide hope, but they are removed from daily life to another 'cultural universe, there to be kept within reach but out of danger' (McCracken, 1988). It is argued that such a displacement of meaning makes the individual feel secure and that the attainment of ideals would leave nothing to be displaced, creating a state of distress.

Living in an age of techno-dependency From the drive of the industrial revolution, technology has formed an integral part of so-



cia1 existence. As part of the Enlightenment agenda, science and the technological advances it could deliver, heralded an age where the social scourges of want, disease and deprivation would be tamed and replaced by a lifestyle of emerging ease (Harvey, 1989). Technological advances provided the infrastructure and manufacturing developments that, not only reshaped the economic landscape with augmenting morkets and advancing consumerism, but also impacted upon the social, political and cultural conceptions of time and space, work and leisure. In the development of road and rail networks, the mechanisation of working practices and legislative changes in working hours, (Malcolmson, 1973; Haywood, Kew et al. 1995) a cultural trend was set in motion whereby the physicality of life, arduous sweat and toil of work would increasingly diminish. The technological offsprings of science became a new panacea for life's ills. This trend has continued into the present, with the assimilation of technology into almost every aspect of social life and consciousness. This includes television, video, computer and Internet growth, domestic appliances, escalators, lifts, planes, trains and automobiles, even extending to fast food preparation, delivery and consumption. Some commentators argue that such movements point towards a total mechanisation of leisure and automatism of the self with the 'authority of electronic automatism reducing our will to zero' (Virilio, 199 1 : 104). Regardless of such extremes, the paradox is that even within a culture of 'time squeeze', which has witnessed the 'speeding up of life' (Rojek, 1995: 158) individuals have become increasingly inactive, pursuing the lifestyle of promised ease with the assimilation of technology. This 'fast show' has evolved with, and become dependant upon, technological advances that are now a given within our social existence. However, the paradox is that physiological advances have not kept pace with cognitive capacity for technological innovation. The mind is advanced but the body is physically carnal and as such must be worked.

It is here, at the separation of mind and body, that the contradiction and dependency upon technology is manifest. The detrimental impacts of a lack of physical activity have been raised for some time (Fentem, Bassey et al. 1988; The Sports Council, 1992). Growing health concerns over issues such as heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes have been extended into the younger generation. Even allowing for extensive mass media campaigns, research still indicates that the 'majority of the inactive population do not regard themselves as unfit and at risk' (Allison, 1996: 7). Such attitudes now pervade the 'Playstation generation' with children, as well as adults, displaying symptoms of health disorders related to the 'reduction of physical activity' (The Sports Council 1992; Allison 1996) and the development of obesity, which 'threatens to become the foremost cause of chronic disease in the world' (Grundy, 1998: 1). In short, the life of physical ease produced by the technological revolution and our subsequent assimilation of such into the psyche, rather than the assumed panacea, has produced a physical side effect that threatens our mortality. This is heightened by the inherent contradiction between the quest for a desired aesthetic body and a society driven by technodependency. A further variable worthy of consideration is the means by which the aesthetic acts as a source of distinction between classes. The body in modernity can be discussed through those attributes often linked to middle class values about investing for safety and security. To that end, in understanding the construction of desire and the definitive aesthetic representation forwarded in the health club environment, Featherstone's (199 1 ) description of the carnival and classical bodies is informative. The carnival body, which forms the statistical norm is depicted as grotesque, involving as it does, the consumption of fattening food and intoxicating drink. In contrast, its 'other', the classical body is associated with beauty, is symmetrical, elevated and promoted as the ideal. This process is



supported in the work of Bourdieu (1984), who advocates that class culture is embodied through the habitus. This provides dominant groups with a privileging physical capital accumulated and displayed through class orientation. Nevertheless, the contention here is that the achievement of the ideal, classical body is always deferred, heightened by the range of competing consumer choices and the techno-dependency which actively discourages the qualities necessary to achieve improvements in body maintenance. The achievement of the perfect body incurs opportunity costs, both in terms of time discipline and deferred gratification, which clash with the major tenets of consumer culture. As (Rojek, 1995: 63) argues: '...Western culture associates fat bodies with in-discipline and indulgence; by contrast, thin bodies symbolise asceticism and self-control... ' However, with the increasing commodifcation of knowledge (Harvey, 1989; Haralambros and Holborn, 1995), scientific discoveries and technological innovations rapidly find their way into mass markets. Clinical advances in steroid development and reconstructive surgery exemplify this process where the medical makes way for the market. Steroids are marketed with advice on 'stacking' (Phillips, 1997) to enhance sporting performance, increase recovery and body mass. Likewise, plastic surgery provides a fast-track aesthetic with body sculpting, muscle and silicon implants. Technology is now at a point where the carnival body can become the classical without the discipline, time, sweat or toil. Developments in 'gene-doping', where the body is physically altered by injecting enhancing genes, allows for the potential for the creation of the classic aesthetic to be instantaneous and technological. As Campbell (2000: 27) contends: '...If you can resculpture the whole shape and look of the body through one injection per muscle, then you could certainly change your physique very quickly and without the pain o f exercise'

P 27

Such a future heralds the increasing objectification of the aesthetic. The body is mechanised and acted upon with differences eradicated or imposed in Frankenstein fashion. However, in a consumer techno-dependent society, demanding ease and instant gratification, the strength of moralising appeals to past aesthetic norms is weakened. In this future the Frankenstein is the aesthetic norm.

Objectification of the body Techno-dependency, allied to undisciplined consumption and relative mass affluence (Roberts, 1999) has made adherence to health and fitness regimes a distant objective. There is a constant paradox between the representation and reality, so much so that the representation becomes reality in the hyperreal sense (Baudrillard, 1983). As consumers, there is a belief that the 'hyperreal' (Rojek, 1995) body is achievable, that getting fit is like going to McDonalds; namely it is instant and effortless. However, this is incongruous with the 'reality' of fitness, which requires commitment, dedication, consistency and discipline. Rather than the universality of Kantanian aesthetic judgement (Kant, 1969; Guyer, 1992) an individuation of aesthetics appears more apposite in consumer culture. Given this, that viewed as aesthetically pleasing, in this instance relating to the health club environment and the leisure body, appears an open, free flowing process of desire, choice, selection, consumption or attainment. This paper rejects this contention, instead arguing that aesthetics is inextricably bound to conceptions of desire and discipline, as found in the Foucauldian concern with the subjectification of the individual. Here, that deemed aesthetical is the product of desires shaped through regimes of powerlknowledge that claim and promote an aesthetical 'truth'. Such regimes of powerlknowledge are found in the practices of daily life which, according to Foucault ( 1 983: 21 2): '. ..categorises the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to



his own identity, imposes a law of truth upon him which he must recognise and which others have to recognise in him. It is a form of power, which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings to the word subject: subject to someone ELSE by CONTROL and DEPENDENCE and tied to his own identity and conscience of self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power, which subjugates and makes subject to.. . ' The field of leisure, its construction, differential sectorial environments, practical operation and consumption provides an area within which to study such powerlknowledge, the process of subjectification and its relationship with aesthetics. Deleuze and Guattari (1984) believed that despotic capitalism colonised subjectivity, marking the body, its organs, its gestures and its language by a circulating power. Sassatelli (1999) agrees, arguing that the gym epitomises the spreading of disciplinary body techniques, previously confined to disciplinary institutions or production organisations, into leisure environments. Rojek (1995), in his discussion of Foucault's 'gaze', also argues that our behaviour is regulated by the gaze of others and by the gaze of our own self-reflection. The gaze is depicted as a social product, a construction of signs which is associated with the disciplinary society, visual culture and the power of the eye as mechanisms for ordering things. The gaze, according to Rojek (1 995: 61 -62) is: '...exploited by the leisure industry, which designs leisure settings to conform to the requirements of the eye of leisure.. .leisure entrepreneurs have a clear conception of how leisure sights ought to look...they impose their conception, their gaze, upon leisureusers so that the design of the leisure object itself acts as a control upon physical, social and moral behaviour... ' This can be viewed as a discursive process as these environments are supported within

the wider social context. Several authors support the view that gyms are a result of consumer culture, which invites individuals to joyfully take responsibility for their bodies, to work on them as plastic matter and to invest in body preparation for their self constitution (Bordo, 1993; Featherstone, 1982; O'Neill, 1985; Frank, 1991; Synnott 1993). A brief perusal of the shelves of any supermarket or corner shop reveals a plethora of imagery dedicated to the promotion of an aesthetic directly connected to leisure and, in particular, the health club environment. The industry has also developed its own 'chatter', supported as it is by numerous popular and academic magazines. As an example, Mintel (1998) provides evidence that the health and fitness magazine market has grown by up to 168% in total value terms since 1994. As Sassatelli (1999: 227) argues: '...Not only has the toned body become a become a commercial icon, but also the gym has become highly visible as the site where this body is produced.. .gym scenes are increasingly portrayed and glamourized in an ever widening range of adverts.. . ' Rather than being viewed as a commercial venture where aesthetics are utilised merely to promote services, create a pleasant ambience and reflect consumer choice, aesthetics reflect a discursive political process. Here, both animate and inanimate images act as active, rather than passive 'texts'. The aesthetical seed is planted in the psyche, which, with time and the perpetual bombardment of supportive imagery, inscriptively territorialises desire (Deleuze and Guattari, 1984). In other words, desire is shaped intertextually as image, supportive slogans, promotion, peer and social influence layer and set in motion a series of associative signifiers that are regarded as positive. For example, picture the front cover image of a young man wading through the sea displaying a muscularly defined torso, head slightly bowed, eyes raised, smiling through perfect white teeth with dripping wet quaffed hair and the slogan 'get your summer six pack'.



Although this image possesses a host of interpretations, which, in itself, demonstrates the notion of intertextuality, such an image sets up associative signifiers such as youth, slimness, athleticism and sex. These, in turn, set off other signifiers that are positively viewed and support the context of the image. In negative contrast, such an image and its supportive signifiers, demand and gain their positive identity from those signifiers that are absent and in opposition to the positive image and its' associative signifiers. Signifiers such as old, fat or flabby and their associative signifiers provide examples, as framed within this context, of negative 'trace' (Derrida, 1982). These signifiers are the antithesis of the health club environment. It is argued that even with the multiplicity of interpretation and diversity in body shape a definitive and discursive representation of body imagery and message is being preached within the health club environment. This discursive representation revolves around a series of centricisms and phobias connected with youth, physicality, diet, health and sex. More importantly, however, it is argued that the health club environment, whilst premised upon such a discursive aesthetic, consistently fails to deliver the desired aesthetic. Rather, sets in motion a cycle of dissatisfaction of desire. As Crandall (1999: 3) describes:

mote and inform us of the aesthetic, shaping our desire and demand for its attainment, paradoxically, restrict our capacity to fulfil such desires. In other words, technology brings the aesthetic to us, yet our dependency upon technology has made us incapable of disciplining ourselves to a regime of consistent diet and exercise (we must discipline ourselves if we want our desire). Crandall ( 1 999) argues that the print or television media image produces a viewer and a viewing capacity adequate to its desire-producing demands. The implications for providers are even more interesting as customers are effectively engaging in leisure activities that, rather than open avenues from freedom of choice if not expressions, are intrinsically curtailed and prescribed. As in the sphere of work, the leisure space, whilst promoting itself as a site of refreshing reconstruction, risk, arousal, adventure and innovation actually appears committed to the rationalised reduction of such attractions (Haywood, Kew et al. 1995). In this, the leisure environment is one of rationalised inscription, which is veiled behind an imagery that advances the illusion of choice and desire fulfilment.

Conclusion

'...The 'here' is fragmented; the desire for 'there' is created; the means of travel to get 'there' is provided; and the achievement of that goal is made temporary and incomplete.. .at work are procedures of unification and coherency, shuttled back and forth in conceptions of destination and arrival.. . '

Rather than answer a set of questions regarding the nature and development of the aesthetic as it is represented within leisure, especially health club contexts, this paper has attempted to theorise inter-connected issues central to the aestheticisation of the body. Core to this is the notion of desire, its representative construction, repression and regulation within a consumer, techno-dependant society countenancing modernity/postmodernity debates.

The employment of a travel metaphor is useful. The journey exceeds the arrival as the vital constituent of the health club environment. Arrival spells an end, an outcome, whereas the journey contains ups and downs, starts and stops and need never end. Technology as progress fits well with the metaphor of the journey. The very mediums that pro-

With global concerns over health, in particular obesity and its implications, the growth in the health and fitness market, as means to ameliorate such concerns, appears a logical and reciprocal solution to the excesses of consumer capitalism. Here markets have evolved to serve the cyclic fat to fit process playing off the contradictory desires and consumption



patterns of the low activity, fast food lifestyle with a desire for aesthetic appearance. However, the health club environment, with the support of most of the mass media, is a site of practical and cultural contradiction where the desire of the aesthetic is a process of repression and construction. It is argued here that the aesthetical representations of the body and the market promoted desires therein are driven by modernist dogmas. Such dogmas gain their epistemological foundation from the assumption, as found within Plato's forms, of an ontological aesthetic. Such a quest is evidenced within the symbolic space of the health club environment. Although differential images of colour and creed are found within these symbolic spaces, these images, it is argued are packaged and produced pointing towards a definitive aesthetic. The health club does not celebrate difference, but is openly committed to eradicating such, or that is the promise, as the images promoted testify to a universal body. As with media, this aesthetic is one of the trim, fit and athletic physique fuelled with associations of personal success and sexual prowess. If the health club, in promoting and promising such an aesthetic fails, in the majority of cases, to fulfil the desire for such an aesthetic why do customers return? It is suggested that customers purchase the image and the dreamworld associations of promised aesthetic, not the physical entity itself. In addition, the concept of 'displaced meaning' alludes to the continual deferral of ideals in consumer culture in a sort of unreal world. The inability to attain leaves open the possibility of eventually attaining a whole ideal lifestyle, protecting us from losing our illusions. The health club environment works to maintain dreams, illusions and potentialities for the rewards of recruitment and retention. In this, the concept of dissatisfaction of desire, rather than threatening the existence of health clubs, paradoxically enhances their position. With a techno-dependant generation

chasing the dreamworld and its associations, the aesthetic must be repressed rather than delivered. Desire must always be dissatisfied yet supported with the whispering images of promise and potentiality. The health club must maintain the illusion of the promised substance of modernity within the cloak of postmodern imagery. Here the symbolic space of the health club, its delivery of desire and the promised aesthetic substance is a modernist emperor dressed in postmodern clothes preaching a product of lies, damn lies and images.

REFERENCES Allison, M. (1996). The Contribution of Sport to PhysicalActivity. Edinburgh, The Scottish Sports Council: 12. Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations. New York, Semiotext (e). Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. Bourdieu, F? (1984). Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Distinction.

London,

Campbell, D. (2000). 'What the Future Holds'. The Observer. London: 26-29. Crondoll, J. (1999). Bodies on the Circuit, CTheory journal. 2000. Deleuze, G. & Guattari F. (1984). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schiziphrenia. London, Athlone. Deleuze, G. & Guottari F. ( 1 988). A Thousand Plateaux. London, Athlone. Derrida, J. (1982). Positions. Chicago, Chicago University Press. Faurschou, G. ( 1 988). 'Fashion and the cultural logic of postrnodernity'. in Kroker A. & Kroker M. (Eds) Body Invaders: Sexuality and the Postmodern Condition. Basingstoke, Macmillan. Featherstone, M. (1982). 'The body in consumer culture'. Theory, Culture and Society l(2). Featherstone, M. (199 1). Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London, Sage. Fentem, I? H., Bassey E. J., et al. (1988). The New Case for Exercise. London, Sports Council and Health Education Authority. Foster, H., (Ed.) (1985). Postmodern Culture. London, Pluto Press.

Aesthetics of leisure - disciplining desire Foucault, M. (1974). The Archaeology of Knowledge. London, Tavistock. Foucault, M. (1983). 'The subject and power'. in Dreyfus H. L. & Rabinow I? (Eds.) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 208-26. Foucault, M. (1984). 'When Knowledge Becomes Power'. The Listener. London.


Fox, N. J. (1993). Postmodernism, Sociology and Health. Buckinghom, Open University Press. Frank, A. W. (1991). 'For a sociology of the body: an analytical view'. in Featherstone, M., &Turner, B. S. (Eds) The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory. London, Sage. Goodchild, F? (1996). Deleuze & Guattari: An lntroduction to the Politics of Desire. London, Sage. Grundy, S. M. (1998). 'Multifactorial causation of obesity: implications for prevention.' American Journol of Clinical Nutrition 67: 563-572. Guyer, F?, (Ed.) (1992). The Cambridge Companion to Kont. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Haralambros, M. & Holborn, M. (1995). Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. London, Harper Collins. Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Exchange. Oxford, Basil Blockwell. Haywood, L., Kew, F., et al., (Eds). (1995). Understanding Leisure. Cheltenhom, Stanley Thomas. Jameson, F. ( 199 1 ). Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London, Verso. Jencks, C. (1984). The Language of Postmodern Architecture. London, Academy Press. Kont, I., (Ed.) (1969). Foundations of the Metophysic of Morals. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merril. Kroker, A. & Cook, D. (1986). The Postmodern Scene. New York, St Martin's Press. Malcolmson, R. (1973). Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. McCracken, G. (1988). Culture and Consumption. New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

O'Neill, J. (1985). Five Bodies: the Human Shape of Society. lthaca and London, Cornell University Press. Phillips, B., (Ed.) (1997). Spom Supplement Review, Mile High Publishing. Plato (1974). The Republic. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. Roberts, K. ( 1999). Leisure in Contemporary Society. Wallingford, CABI. Rojek, C. (1995). Decentering Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory. London, Sage Publications. Sassatelli, R. (1999). 'Interaction Order and Beyond: A Field Analysis of Body Culture within Fitness Gyms.' Body & Society 5(2-3): 227-248. Synnott, A. (1993). The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society. LondonINew York, Routledge. The Sports Council. (1992). Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey. London, Sports Council. Virilio, I?(1991 ). The Aesthetics of Disappearance. New York, Semiotext (e). Williams, S. J. & Bendelow, G, (1998). The Lived Body: Sociological Themes, Embodied Issues. London, Routledge.

DAVID McGILLIVRAY, BA (Hons) Leisure Management, Lecturer in Leisure Operations, Division of Media, Language and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, G4 OBA, United Kingdom

M A T FREW, Lecturer in Leisure Operations BA (Hons) Recreation Management, Division of Media, Language and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, G4 OBA, United Kingdom

Megill, A. (1987). Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida. London, University of California Press.

Address for correspondence: Division of Media, Language and Leisure Management, Glasgow Caledonion University, Glasgow, G4 OBA, United Kingdom

Mintel (1998). Men's Lifestyle magazines. London, Mintel.

Tel: (++44) 141 331 8464 Email: [email protected]